


Service to the Emperor

by acf151



Series: Order Falling [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Sith Alchemy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22354609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acf151/pseuds/acf151
Summary: Cal is sent on a private mission for Snoke.
Series: Order Falling [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593052
Kudos: 13





	Service to the Emperor

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I'm tired, and there's a real possibility I'm not going to be able to finish these stories. So here's the incomplete pieces. If I can, I'll add to them.

No matter how useful Kestis was as a staff officer in his analysis or as an impromptu, though limited bodyguard, he remained a Force user, and as a Force user he ultimately answered to Supreme Leader Snoke. So, when Snoke sent him on assignment with his 404th quartet Hux thought little of it. 

When Kestis failed to return after the first week, Hux was concerned, and intensified his discreet inquiries. He had little time to devote to the project though. Using some of the analysis Kestis had completed before his reassignment, intelligence had located a possible Resistance base on a planet called D’Qar. In the aftermath of the loss of Starkiller base, they needed to strike fast. 

***  
On the whole, Cal preferred working for intelligence. Traveling remote to places, especially without a droid, felt too exposed these days. It made him uneasy. 

Datapads rarely left him reeling from intense Force echoes, and much like he’d done with his music in the scrapyards, puzzling through crumbs and threads of data to find the right path, the correct answers, distracted his mind enough, that he was able to take his mind off the fact that he was working for darkside Force users under something that looked suspiciously Imperial in origin. 

It made no sense at all, but when he was on the Finalizer, he felt calm, with a peace of purpose that he’d rarely found since his Master had died, even in the Force. They were doing their best to prevent chaos from sweeping the galaxy again, a worthy goal, surely. General Hux had a point, after all. Was it considerate to allow the errors of the Republic to re-entrench, if they supported terrorist groups like the Resistance? Was that the best use of his time and resources? On the ship, his answer was no. 

Something in him, perhaps the Force, said that it was wrong that he couldn’t remember his life after leaving Dathomir with Merrin, or how he had come to be frozen in carbonite. But he rarely stopped long enough to consider this. He had much to do. Hux needed him to focus. It was only around Kylo Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke that this voice grew almost too loud to ignore. It was only then that his obedience had to be thought through, instead of instinctive. 

The regular sparring sessions he had with Ren’s Knights, and Snoke’s guard qualified him to carry a lightsaber, as Force user who could be called to serve. They beat him, every time, but he kept some semblance of his old skills in practice. And it helped him maintain the physical conditioning required of the First Order. 

This assignment was a mix of both his skills as a soldier and as an analyst. Snoke had ordered him to transport a secured data core and accompanying datapad to a General Sheev. His escort had been provided with the coordinates, and were bringing him there. This was a simple assignment. He’d be back soon. Smoothing out imaginary creases in his dark uniform, Cal strode from the shuttle.

They were met on the landing area by two dark-shrouded beings, who motioned them inside. Two of his troopers stayed with the shuttle, and two escorted him. The halls were dark and shadowed. This was unlike most of the First Order bases and ships he had experience with. They were usually brightly lit. 

After being escorted to a door, Cal entered a vast room, past two of Snoke’s red guards flanking the entrance. This must be one of Snoke’s personal palaces, then. His two came in with him. 

“Yes?” An older voice asked, in a commanding voice. Perhaps he’d not been expected.

“Sir. Specialist Kestis with a secured data core from Supreme Leader Snoke. I have been asked to report to General Sheev.”

A low, pleased chuckle quietly emanated from the shadows to one side. “Indeed. I am he. Come closer, Specialist Kestis. Place it here.” Cal brought the core over to the shadow where the voice emanated from, and placed the core on a table. He still could not see the General. 

“Read the datapad, boy.” Something about the voice started to flood Cal with a rising sense of anxiety. 

“Specialist Cal Kestis is temporarily reassigned to the command of General Sheev, in support of the Final Order project, for data analysis and general support.” Oh. Well. That was high handed of them. Cal felt a twinge of annoyance that Hux would send him away indefinitely without so much as a farewell. Perhaps he didn’t know. 

“Pleased to meet you Specialist Kestis.” The shadow moved, and Cal could just make out a hand extended to him over the table to shake. Force help him, it had been so long since he’d dealt with the negative side of his psychometry, he didn’t even consider that he wasn’t wearing his gloves. His hand came up automatically, and lightly grasped his commander’s hand. 

The first vision was simple, almost coldly factual. A clone, awoke in a vat, perfectly suited to the spirit of the Emperor Sheev Palpatine that had permeated its mind, filling it with the terrible power of the dark side. A well-ordered way to get around the template glitches common to clones with their own minds, and a precise way to cheat death. It was a perfectly grown clone, from the original host. A last stop gap against the way of all Sith and the Rule of Two. The next clone was ever so marginally less perfect, and so on, and so on down to this clone, generations removed from the original template. With each copy, more and more energy was required to maintain it.

The second vision was somehow more overwhelming, the dread and fear a coppery ashen taste on Cal’s tongue and throat, which made no sense, because there wasn’t anything he could see yet. Next to him was a festering gravity well of evil, the intensity of it was making him overwhelmingly ill. He had been here before, trapped, and unable to move. Before whatever horror it was could arise and consume him, his hand was dropped, and the vision ended. But his mind still reeled. 

“I require your service Kestis.” The hand that had rocked his mind back fifty years picked up the data core, leaving the table clear. His troopers, and the two red guards by the door had come up behind him, in the moment of inattention, and now stood quite close. “I will not destroy you; your abilities are far too valuable for that, but it will be unpleasant for some time. After that, you will be returned to the Finalizer to continue your service to the First Order. Please, sit on the table at one end.” 

Cal froze. The table was laid before and to one side of where General – No. Where the cloned Emperor was presumably seated. Cal still couldn’t see deeply enough into the shadows to be certain. To sit at one end was to turn his back to the Emperor. To sit at the other was to come terrifyingly close to him. Both were unthinkable. 

The red guards and his own troopers calmly picked him up and laid him down firmly on the table, with his feet pointing towards the Emperor. Their gloves and gauntlets prevented any accidental activation of his psychometry, as they held him down. 

“We will discuss this in full, later.” White light began to play around his skin. Though the Emperor did not touch him, Cal’s eyes felt unbearably heavy, as the Force, along with his own life essence, was pulled through his body and into the shadows where the voice and the hand originated.


End file.
